Illustrator Help with joining paths and two other 'I should know this' questions.

[Parsnip]

Hey everyone, right now I'm working on a project and I needed to join paths, but nothing seems to work. I wanted a rounded bump with sloping sides so I used three ellipses and deleted the two outer ones leaving their curved edges. But for some reason no matter what I select in the pathfinder I can't make it one solid shape, I would then join that shape with the border and it's be perfect. Alas the sloping parts fill OUTSIDE. Any advice on this?

Also, something I never figured out: When typing how do I get to another tool or end the typing segment without manually going and clicking another tool? Same with the pen tool, whenever I'm done if it's not a closed shape and just a path I don't know how to end the path without manually selecting the pointer...

example:

 

[hawkeye]

You need to place an anchor point on the arch where you want to join the two paths, delete the extra point at the bottom of the arch, then select the two end points and join (Ctrl+J).